Hiroshima Dreams

After three months at school, I still spend the day looking forward to going home, to the stretch of time from three to six when Obaachan and I can play games, talk, and meditate.

Finally, we have winter break. Sally and I come home to a table laid out with fresh fruit, sushi, tempura, and candies Obaachan makes from bean paste.

“Fine, aside from the teachers, the classes, and the schoolwork.” Sally grabs a diet Coke and a can of Pringles and heads for the computer, ignoring the feast.

“I guess.” I lie, although compared to kindergarten, it is better. There is work at least, and we get to sit at our own desk, which makes it less noticeable that I don’t have a friend.

A couple of girls did speak to me this week. In art, a girl complimented me on my painting of a sparrow. “Looks like it’s going to fly,” she said. But by the time I had pulled my voice into my mouth, she’d already moved back to her own easel. Irma asked to borrow a pencil from me. I gave it to her without a word; she never returned it. And at rehearsal for the holiday play, Edna Farrell changed places with me so I wouldn’t have to stand in the front.

At least the kids aren’t mean to me like they are to this one boy, Cole, who always does the opposite of what he’s supposed to do. If Mrs. Maynard says “Come to the door,” he stays in his seat. If she says “Sit,” he climbs on the shelves. The other kids make faces at him and throw wadded paper. They imitate the thick way he speaks. Cole ignores them, but I know his feelings, as if they were my own. He feels like there’s a plant inside of him that hasn’t had any water, drooping, dying.

Matt Perino is one class over. I see him dashing out of the door every afternoon with the back of his hair sticking straight up. When he saw a boy making fun of Cole in the hall, he said, “Knock it off!” So at least there’s one person to stick up for Cole.

The only kids from kindergarten who are in my class are Irma and Ahab, and they’ve stuck together just like they did then. Even to them, I am invisible.

“We added numbers and learned about vowels. We made place mats out of woven paper. The teacher read us a story.”

“I told it to your mom when she was your age, and she couldn’t sleep that night, so I’d better not. I will tell it to you when you’re older. I promise.”

She chuckles. “She was like Sally, restless, wanting to be someone else, struggling to come out into the world like a lizard shedding skin. She was . . . attached.”

“Ah, inquisitive one. Attachment means having ideas of how things should be. And if things are not that way, you are unhappy. America is the land of attachment, I think.”

“Let’s see. Say you have some money. You go to the toy store. There is a big sale on toys. Everything is . . . uh . . . one cent. But the store is full of people crowding to get at the good toys.”

“No. Maybe not. They might be pushing to get to what they wanted. They might be worried they won’t find the toy they want.”

Obaachan doesn’t use the tea bags like Mom does; she puts loose leaves in a small pot, lets it steep, then pours it into tiny cups. “Let’s see what the leaves have to tell us.” She turns her cup in a circle. The water swirls the leaves. “Ah, today, the leaves speak about you. They say you are a young duckling afraid to enter the water. The other ducklings are swimming away. You want to catch them, but you don’t want to get your feet wet.”

“Hmmmm.” She swirls the cup again. “Time. In time, you will enter the water. Someday, you’ll even like school.”

“It’s just . . . I don’t belong there.” That’s all I can really say. The shouts. The shoving. The chattering girls. And I know that this feeling, un-belonging, will be there in second grade and third and fourth.

“You will always swim in your own direction. That’s a good thing. That takes strength. In the end, you will be the better for it.”

“But, it’s hard now. I know. To be different. When I was your age I wanted more than anything to be like the other girls in my town. They all seemed prettier and happier. They laughed and played. When I was growing up, the girls did not go to school. Now it’s different, of course. A much better time to be a girl. And you will do important work. Science, I think.”

Obaachan sips her tea. “Here’s a koan for Sally. A master pours a cup of tea for his student. The cup overflows, but the master keeps pouring. ‘The tea is spilling,’ the student shouts. ‘You are like this cup,’ the master replies, ‘so full of yourself and your ideas of reality. You must make room to learn anything. ’ You see.” Obaachan empties her cup in one gulp. “Sally’s cup is so full of what she thinks she should be, that her true nature can’t come to her. Still, I think . . . I’m sure she will find herself.”

I peer into the tea. There are days when I hear voices in leaves, and music in the wind. Clouds swirl into promises. But when I try to see a message in the leaves, I only see specks of black, as if someone put a dirty shoe into a puddle. So I add sugar, snow falling through a green pool and dissolving.